Wednesday, May 14, 2014

An easy breakfast: ahjusoojad kohupiimasaiad aka Curd Cheese Toasts

I'm reposting this post from February 2007, as it was listed as one of the 50 of the world's best breakfast dishes over at the hotelbookers.com few days ago. Although I'm trying not to eat too much white bread these days, I stopped at the local supermarket on the way back home from my firstborn's violin class, bought a bloomer, and made these at home. Being an Estonian, I obviously - and rather conveniently - already had some curd cheese at the fridge. And the kids - all three of them - loved these!

Here's an Instragram short of the toasts (you can follow my daily food related pics here):

And here's the original post from all those years ago:

I was flipping through the pages of a tired thin Estonian cookbook called "Kohupiimatoidud" the other day, looking for some nostalgic recipes. The cookbook was published in 1973, a year before I was even born, and is full of recipes utilising curd cheese, one of the very popular ingredients in Estonian kitchen (frequently featured here on Nami-nami blog, as you can see from the long list of curd cheese recipes at the end of this post). One of the recipes that caught my eye was for curd cheese toasts - something my mum used to make quite often to me and my sister. As I still had some white bread left after making Estonian tomato toasts, I decided to make my childhood recipe from the book for breakfast today. Creamy and sweet topping with a hint of vanilla, hot and crispy base - what more can one ask from a breakfast toast!? Of course, this would work just as well as a weekday dessert, especially if there are children in the house..

If you cannot find curd cheese (ask for tvorog in Russian and Polish shops), then try ricotta or fromage fraiche instead. As far as the bread is concerned, then try to get hold of wheat bloomer.